Back when I was in my early twenties, a friend and I had started going to auctions, flea markets and other places to try and make money with the old buy low, sell high strategy. While it worked on occasion, many times the cost of our goods would eat into our profits to a great degree. Since we were working with a minimal budget we needed to figure out a way to get our merchandise as cheaply as possible. We kicked around a bunch of ideas and I mentioned jokingly, "wouldn't it be great to get our stuff for nothing"? It didn't take long for thoughts of the 'Goodwill, Salvation Army, Purple Heart' and organizations such as that to come to mind. Within a couple of weeks thereafter, 'Bill and Zill Free Pick-Up Service' was born.

Although it's been many years since the days of Bill and Zill, the idea behind it is as viable today as ever, as shown by the continued growth of organizations such as the Salvation Army. And with the introduction of online auctions such as eBay, you have ways of selling your stuff today that we would have loved to have had back then. If you decide that you might want to give this business a try, here's a few things that can help you get off to a good start, and avoid some of the pitfalls that we encountered along the way.

When we first started out, we didn't have a lot of money, but we did have a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Since we didn't have the resources or name recognition of the large organizations, we decided we would have to take a simple approach in reaching our potential customers. We began by placing small ads in local papers. Our ads would be quite basic and read something like, 'Free Pick-up of Unwanted Re-usable Items, or 'We Pick-up Unwanted reusable Household Items-FREE' You can use the same approach. Just keep your ads simple and look for weekly papers distributed in upscale neighborhoods.

Once you start advertising, it shouldn't take long for you to start receiving calls. One thing to make clear to your customers is that you only take re-usable items. Some people will try to stick appliances, mattresses and things like that on you. Let them know that you can't take these types of items because they're not re-usable. You'll no doubt come upon situations where the people will have some really nice things that they're getting rid of but in order to get them, you'll also have to take the junk. Sometimes it's worth taking the bad, in order to get...The good. One case in particular comes to mind.

One hot summer day, we received a call by a woman who wanted to get rid of a perfectly good working upright freezer. Usually we wouldn't bother with those kinds of calls, but since we were in the area, we decided to stop by and take a look. When we got there, we found that the freezer was a little beat up, and wasn't really worth bothering with, so we told the lady that no, we couldn't take it. As we were leaving she said to us, "how about if I throw this desk in, would you take the freezer then"?. We looked at what was an Antique Secretary desk in near perfect condition, and after trying hard not to seem too eager told her, "yea, we think we could do that". We sold the desk a couple of weeks later for $400(Which was a good bit of money back then). The point is, you just never know what you're going to get, and sometimes the calls that seem to have little promise can have some very nice surprises.

Before starting this type of venture make certain that you have the right kind of equipment. You'll need a truck or van, handcarts, and a place or two to store the stuff. And another very important thing to figure out is 'how are you going to get rid of the stuff quickly? Once you start getting calls you'll be surprised at how quickly the stuff can accumulate on you, so before you start placing ads, figure out how you're going to get rid of it? Some of the ways I've used to sell things have been; Flea Markets, auctions, classified ads, other dealers, and stores. As mentioned earlier, you now also have online auctions to sell your merchandise as well.

One last thing to keep in mind; you'll be going in and out of people's homes, so be careful when moving items. Although we never broke anything during the years that we did this, it's always a possible, so you might want to have some type of insurance to cover this contingency.

If you're looking for a small business that doesn't require a huge budget, and you don't mind physical labor, starting a 'Free Reusable Service' might be the business for you. You'll find it to be interesting, and you'll learn a lot about things and people along the way. As I like to tell people, "You would be amazed at what people give away".